The Black Eagle Inn Review

A tale told over decades and in a different age, The Black Eagle Inn (by Christoph Fischer) is an interesting and difficult to put down look on life to the post World War Two Germany. The book does get off to quite a slow start but if you stick with it, you are rewarded. 

The book chronicles the fortunes of a family farm and associated restaurant - The Black Eagle Inn - through the war and the difficult years that followed in a nation struggling to rebuild and come to terms with a new identity. While set in this turbulent period of history, the story focuses more on the wars inside The Black Eagle Inn rather than out. Backstabbing, petit politics and mind games are all waged within the same four walls. 

Most of these games are fought between cousins Markus and Lukas, the former being matriarch Anna’s favourite “son”, who stands to inherit the most when she dies. But Lukas’s determination to get a bigger slice of the family estate transforms from silly squabbles between children as he and Markus grow older.

The book cuts deep inside the minds of all the key characters. I have read many books that try to throw completely different characters together that have failed, but The Black Eagle Inn is not among that tally. The author really gets inside his character’s heads and plays out their thought processes to the readers, offering a deep understanding of the events or the emotions that have led them to where they are. 

The author should also be applauded for examining controversial themes of the time, like homosexuality and marriage to foreigners. A lot of books set in post war Europe, I have found, tend to shy away from such themes, which is disappointing. It’s also great to read a book set in Germany as well - most war/ post war novels are usually set in merry old England.